AESA News: Save the Date for Summer Leadership; Does your ESA want to Exhibit at the Annual Conference?; More

February 6, 2018

AESA Member News & Updates

In This Issue:

Recap

The Federal Advocacy Committee Meeting

Reserve your Exhibit Booth at AESA's Annual Conference now!

Exhibit Booth sales are now open - if your ESA wants to exhibit, act soon!

News from Two Affinity Groups

Program Evaluation
Open Educational Resources

Business Partner News from ISLoan Solutions

Saving Employees Money and Improving Recruiting and Retention

Visit our Website

Does your ESA want to be an exhibitor at AESA's Annual Conference?

A popular feature of the AESA Annual Conference is the Exhibit Hall.

Don't miss out!

Exhibit Hall information is online now.

Purchase an exhibitor booth

SAVE the Date! Details coming soon...

Recap: Federal Advocacy Committee Meeting January 23-34

AESA members who represented 30 states and ESAs from across the country met in Washington DC on January 23-24. The purpose of the meeting was to gather member input for AESA's 2018 Federal Legislative Agenda. AESA's Annual Legislative Agenda and priorities are planned with input from members at this annual meeting.

This year's committee meeting featured robust discussions on emerging and ongoing legislative issues. Some topics included teacher preparation, Erate, and DACA, to name a few. Many thanks to Noelle Ellertson Ng and Leslie Finnan, AESA legislative liaisons, for organizing the presentations.

Participants at the meetings processed the information they gathered to provide input into AESA's legislative agenda. We will share the final documents with the general membership when they are complete.

If you are interested in Federal Advocacy, please mark your calendar and plan to attend AESA's Annual Educator Call to Action Conference, September 26-28, 2018 in Washington DC.

Affinity Group News

( Find more information on our website, too!)

An Invitation from the

Program Evaluation Affinity Group

Hello Colleagues,

I’m writing to remind you that the next meeting of our Affinity Group will be February 8 at noon EST.

If you haven’t already joined Schoology – the platform we’re using to host our meetings – please do so. The name of the group is “AESA Program Evaluation Affinity Group” and the access code is B3JQ9-KD9ZN. If you have questions about how to join Schoology, just let me know. We will be using the Schoology conference function (formerly known as BigBlueButton).

Directions for how to access a conference are at this link: https://support.schoology.com/hc/en-us/articles/204115668-How-to-Use-BigBlueButton .

It may initially sound complicated, but I assure you it’s pretty straightforward.

The agenda for our meeting will focus on developing and using logic models in program evaluation. We will share our organization’s work with logic models and their role in program evaluation - development, use with clients in the proposal and contract process, use in the evaluation of work process, etc. - and walk through how and why you might develop and use similar models for your work.

Prior to our meeting, we will provide resources for your reference and use, in the Resources section. Please feel free to review those documents ahead of our meeting. We also invite you to share similar and related resources from your work; please email those to me at labbatiello@aces.org and I'll add them to the site.

Spread the word and please also invite others to join our group! Thanks very much - and I look forward to seeing you soon!

Sincerely,

Leslie Abbatiello

Director, ACES PDSI

labbatiello@aces.org

www.aces.org

Open Educational Resources Affinity Group

The OER Affinity Group explores the changing instructional landscape as it moves from a traditional paper textbooks toward various Open Education Resource (OER) materials for online and face to face instruction.

Participants share ideas and approaches about how ESA’s can support this changing landscape, including ESA services that support schools and promote the shift of instructional practice.

Don't miss anything! Join OER today!

Read more on this flyer!

Business Partner News:

Saving Employees Money and Improving Recruiting and Retention

STUDENT LOAN RELIEF BENEFIT

ISLoan Solutions’ Voluntary Student Loan Relief Benefit:

It’s no secret, student loan debt holders face a myriad of challenges: saving less for retirement, garnished wages, damaged credit, increased stress, mortgage and rent woes, loss of sleep and mental/physical health problems, just to name a few. Employees are looking to their employers for help, and it is a deciding factor when seeking employment .

Collaborating with 138 ESA Agencies

ISLoan Solutions, an AESA business partner since 2015, collaborates with 138 AESA agencies and has educated more than 150,000 employees on opportunities to save a significant amount of money on their student loans through forgiveness and refinancing.

ESAs that invested in providing the voluntary Student Loan Relief Benefit to their service area districts means employees save money on student loans, and the results can be life changing.

From a Member

Charles F. Mahoney, III, Executive Director of Intermediate Unit #1 in Coal Center, PA, has this to say,

“ISLoan Solutions makes it so easy for us to implement this voluntary benefit in our districts; it’s beneficial not just for the employee, but our districts as well. District employees working with ISLoan Solutions have seen an average 82% reduction in their monthly loan payments and are projected to receive an average of $82,244 in tax free loan forgiveness.”

You Share. We Educate. They Decide.

Tammy Bedinghaus, SVP of Businesses Development, sums up the mission of ISLoan Solutions this way,

“Our focus is to educate and empower employees with solutions to reduce their student loan debt, so they have more money to spend on what matters to them. Putting dollars directly back into your communities is a win-win for everyone. It’s as easy as sharing an email, and your employees and districts will love you for it.”

You share. We educate. They Decide. For more information about how you can help your service area district employees reduce their student loan stress, contact: bd@isloansolutions.com

AESA | info@aesa.us | www.aesa.us